Former Champions Vitaly Bigdash And Marat Gafurov Return To ONE Championship In January

2018 looks set to be a big year for ONE Championship and they are stacking up their first fight card of the year with two former champions appearing at ONE: Kings of Courage on Jan. 20.

On Jan. 24, middleweight Vitaly Bigdash (9-1) will return to the ONE cage for the first time since losing his ONE middleweight title to Aung La Nsang last June. The Russian suffered the first defeat of his career at the hands of “The Burmese Python” and had his nine fight win streak ended in Myanmar. After taking some time out of the spotlight, Bigdash will now return to take on Brazilian fighter Leanrdo Ataides (10-3) who is currently riding a two fight win streak. Ataides last fought in August when he defeated Michal Pasternak via unanimous decision. Prior to that he also defeated Mohamed Ali with a flying knee TKO victory in Dec. 2016.

Also on the card, another former Russian ONE Championship title holder will return to action when Marat Gafurov (15-1) features. Gafurov’s opponent is yet to be named, but an announcement is expected in due course. The Russian will be staying at featherweight according to the official release.

The main event of ONE: Kings of Courage will see Tiffany Teo (7-0) take on Xiong Jing Nan (10-1) in ONE’s inaugural ONE women’s strawweight title fight. The event will take place at the Jakarta Convention Center in Jakarta, Indonesia and will be ONE’s first fight card of the year.